Oh for the love of Christ

Linda Wall (R-Lesbos expat) is an admitted “ex-gay” (she hasn’t been gay for ‘lo these forty years) and she wants you to vote for her for the Virginia House of Delegates. She’s a Republican (because of course she is.)

Apparently, Wall, now 61 years old, was “in homosexuality” back when she was a high school gym teacher at Prince George High School in Petersburg, Virginia, and while employed there, she had herself a little lesbian love affair — with a minor.

But wait. It gets better!

She claims that she is now an “ex-gay” and that the only reason she was gay (and molested a kid, I imagine) is because she let liberal professors at her liberal arts college destroy her judgment and values.

Linda Wall, 61, said that she is a completely different person from the time when the relationship occurred, and now she consistently speaks out against legislation that she feels promotes homosexual lifestyles.

‘Forty years ago I was a different person. I was a heavy pot smoker with… impaired judgement and made some bad choices,‘ she told a local Associated Press reporter.

‘You do that in college sometimes. Some people do, some people don’t,’ she continued.

She also explained that the the girl that Ms Wall had sexual relations with was a minor at the time. Because there is no statute of limitations on felonies, Ms Wall could still be charged with a crime if the woman decides to come forward.

The revelation technically came in 2006, when she was deposed as part of a defamation lawsuit against her and another Republican candidate.

In the deposition, she admitted that she resigned from her position as a physical education teacher at Prince George High School near Petersburg, Virginia when the girl’s parents confronted her about the relationship.

‘I’ve never tried to hide that I was in homosexuality. If anybody Googles me, they would find that out there,’ she said.

~snip~

On her campaign website, Ms Wall attributes her lesbian relationship to the wayward ways of her liberal college teachers.

‘When I went away to Longwood College, I allowed liberal professors to destroy my Judeo-Christian upbringing. I guess one could say I became the ‘prodigal daughter’. But when my rebellious years came to a close I knew it was the Lord that I needed.’ she writes on her campaign website.

She now considers herself an ‘ex-gay’ and is very verbal in her prediliction towards laws that support the ‘traditional’ family.

She currently lobbies on behalf of a conservative group opposed to same-sex marriages and adoption by same-sex couples called the Family Foundation.

Ms Wall also cites her work as a nanny, housekeeper, painter, and horse caretaker on her campaign website.

First of all, is there anything more cliché than a high school gym teacher “in homosexuality” preying on young girls? I mean, wasn’t that a plot line in one of the Harold and Kumar movies? Or a Lifetime movie?

Second of all, the fact that she just up and decided to run for office because she was “touched (inappropriately) by the hand of the Lord” and therefore healed — even though she could still be charged with a felony for her forty year old crime — is a stunning display of Republican hubris.

Third of all, Wall, unintentionally reveals something very interesting about the mindset of the Republican family values crowd; and that is, in her mind, being gay is as bad as being a child molester.

Think about it. She claims that she never tried to hide her homosexuality, and that anyone could google it and find out about it. But, Linda, could anyone have googled the fact that you molested a child?! Do you really not understand that homosexuality is not a felony, and that breaching the trust that parents place in teachers by — you know — schtupping their kids might be just a tad worse than being “in homosexuality.”

And finally, I’ve smoked some pot in my day (inhaled and everything!) and I never not once gayly went off and molested some kids. Just so’s you know.

Something about Linda’s story just doesn’t hold water. I wonder what it is — oh yeah — ALL OF IT.

@DougJ: I will guarantee that my middle school and high school PE teachers were lesbians, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And why did they have to check to make sure we were wet when we came out of the showers?

She also explained that the the girl that Ms Wall had sexual relations with was a minor at the time. Because there is no statute of limitations on felonies, Ms Wall could still be charged with a crime if the woman decides to come forward.

Apparently her “Judeo-Christian” values don’t include actually having read the Bible ever, because then she’d know that the prodigal son in the parable of the prodigal son is the one who doesn’t leave; i.e. is the prodigy.

People get this wrong every time because they don’t understand the story. It’s not a story about fucking up your life and being welcomed back by your family. It’s a story about turning into a huge dick because somebody else got a second chance and you didn’t, even though you didn’t ever need it. It’s exactly like the conservative attitude towards Affirmative Action, in fact.

Dear G-d. She had a fling with a teenager who is now a woman in her late 50s. She must know that this woman is not in a position to come forward and bring charges, or she’d have continued lying about it, I’m guessing.

There are lots of reasons that the teenager–who I’m not going to characterize as a victim because this is far more complex, due to VA’s history of laws criminalizing all homosexual relationships–might not want to press charges now. She may agree with this nutball that they were sinners and are now saved; she may be a lesbian activist in Berkeley. Hard to say.

You know, there’s something I’m not seeing in that article: “Ms.” Wall’s husband. You’re not much of an “ex-gay” if you can’t even bring yourself to marry a dude to prove that you’re totally not gay anymore.

well nothing like falling back on the old Monty Python excuse “well, I got better” to shake off past transgressions. Maybe baby jeebus wanted her to be arrested after getting away with sexual misconduct with a minor 40 years ago and felt that this was the best way to bring it to the attention of the authorities… jeebus does work in mysterious ways.

Well I don’t know about anyone else but I was seriously in love with my PT teacher. In other news my niece is currently under investigation (she is a PT teacher) for offering to buy one of her students gym shoes (to be reimbursed) and signing the e-mail to her “love ****” apparently loving your students is the no no in England. Which is totally fucked up. My niece is a brilliant teacher, her students are world champion weight lifters in their divisions, and the school administration is bitching cause she signs her e-mail “love ****” (her name). What the fuck.

What are the chances that a male teacher, who had relations with a minor, gay, straight or otherwise, would be acceptable in a public position? Why would this horrid woman think she should be? Taking away a child’s healthy sexual development is a venal crime.

Yep. And the dirty fucking hippies turned hordes of chaste priests into baby rapists. Really, America is lucky that the nasty liberals are too lazy to make EVERYONE into a baby raping pot smoking Bible burner.

Oh well, when her party gives her ass the boot (because the chances the GOP will give a woman a pass on this are -500) she can blame the liberals for that as well.

People are wrong about which son is the prodigal one. But why would blowing all your money and winding up as a failure make you a prodigy? If you think about it even for like ten seconds you’ll see I’m right.

Let’s do a little math here: 40 years ago, Wall would’ve been 21 years old. The typical high school student would’ve been between 14-19 years old depending on when the student’s birthday fell in relation to the cut-off date for school enrollment. The age difference between Wall and the student in question would’ve been between 3-7 years if the student were in fact a minor, and more on the order of 2-3 years if the student in question passed her 18th birthday during the period of Wall’s inappropriate relationship.

Considering that at the time of these events in Virginia, there was a strong tradition of high school girls (from sophomores to seniors) being in relationships with male college students – in fact, it was expected behavior – I’m not sure exactly how worked up we should be about the prospect of illegal sex based on the age difference in that context.

Much more troubling is the power differential and abuse of power and authority between a teacher and a student. Whether the teacher in that case is gay or straight is irrelevant to the issue of abuse of power and status.

As an anti-gay Republican ex-gay activist, Wall has incentive to blame her misbehavior on liberals, drug use, homosexuality and an alleged loss of her Judeo-Christian moorings rather than place the blame where it really belongs, on herself and her own bad judgement.

The 59th District is one of the most Republican in the state, but this situation is beyond ridiculous. Voters have the choice of a squeaky clean candidate in Connie Brennan, a nurse and mother who has served Nelson County on the school board and the county board of supervisors and is the obvious choice for anyone who has a brain. The contrast with the other two couldn’t be any starker. Will voters pick Connie Brennan, or will they opt for the habitual scofflaw or the supposedly-reformed sexual predator who could still face a felony conviction if her victim comes forward to press charges? I can’t believe that there would be any other choice for voters except Connie Brennan. That is, unless voters in the 59th have lost their minds.

While I wasn’t in girls gym (wrong sex) I did have the girls gym and instructor for home room for three years. We all knew that she was as ghey as they come but nobody cared a whit about it. She was an excellent teacher and a really nice person. One time three of us carried her out of the gym and tossed her in a snowbank. At other times we armed our fellow home room inmates with basketballs, badminton birdies, bean bags, soccer balls, kick balls and such, which we would rain down on her when she would look down at the attendance roster. We were seated in the bleachers, which allowed us to hide our ‘weapons’ until we unleashed them.

We never got in trouble and she had a great sense of humor. I’ll never forget when we locked her in an equipment locker and pretended to walk away. We pretended to block the door and it took her a few minutes to figure out that we hadn’t.

“You can’t do this to me, I’m your teacher!”

Like I said, she was a good person and everyone really liked her. We never got in trouble for our hijinks and I will always remember that her class was the fun 15 minutes of my school day.

I’m not older than she is, but I’m not a whole lot younger, and I remember quite clearly that way back then, everyone knew it was wrong, wrong, wrong to mess with a minor. Doesn’t matter what equipment you were born with, it doesn’t matter if he or she begs you, you say “No” and you see that they get home safe, and then you keep on teaching school or gym or whatever.

Can you rehabilitate yourself from something that happened 30 years ago? God, I hope so. But I don’t think it happens quite like this.

But why would blowing all your money and winding up as a failure make you a prodigy?

But its “prodigal”, not “prodigy”. Prodigal means “wastefully or recklessly extravagant” or (as a noun) “a person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance; spendthrift.” So the prodigal son is the one who has wastefully spent his inheritance, not the one who stayed at home. Prodigy comes from the same root- it’s somebody who has extravagant talent- but it’s not the same word.

Prodigal means “wastefully or recklessly extravagant” or (as a noun) “a person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance; spendthrift.”

It means that the same way that Frankenstein means “monster assembled from the remains of other people.” (Frankenstein is the mad scientist, not the monster, whose name is “Monster.”) It’s a back formation from people’s wrong idea about what the story means.

I never said it wasn’t a popular or very old mistake, but it’s a mistake, same as referring to bolts-in-the-neck animated dead guys as “Frankensteins.”

And moreover – nobody ever says “prodigal” and means “spendthrift.” They mean “I had a wild life and then I came back to the fold.” Check Linda Wall, up there – do you think she was referring to her spending habits when she called herself the “prodigal daughter”?

You know, there’s something I’m not seeing in that article: “Ms.” Wall’s husband. You’re not much of an “ex-gay” if you can’t even bring yourself to marry a dude to prove that you’re totally not gay anymore.

I thought the same thing. Show me the dick you’ve learned to love, Ms. Wall.

@Chet: Do you have any citations? According to Merriam-Webster “Prodigal: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure” from “Latin prodigus, from prodigere to drive away, squander, from pro-, prod- forth + agere to drive”

Speaking as one who was ‘interfered with’ as a minor, this woman’s colossal brass balls just amaze me. Wave it off as a youthful, drug induced, liberal-enabled discretion waaayy in the past. Nice try.
I’m sure the victim feels much better now.
I hope everyone did get over the improper relationship, and that certainly could have happened.
But anyone with that violation of trust in their past just shouldn’t ever ask to serve in government.

No, I mean the one that doesn’t at any point use the term “prodigal” to refer to the son who leaves and comes back. Later translations may but that’s just a function of how widespread the misapprehension is.

OK, so we have an asexual lesbian (as opposed to a bisexual in denial, the other kind of ex-gay) who thinks she can get away with admitting she had inappropriate relations with one of her students because the pot made her do it. Oh. Kay.

Apparently her “Judeo-Christian” values don’t include actually having read the Bible ever, because then she’d know that the prodigal son in the parable of the prodigal son is the one who doesn’t leave; i.e. is the prodigy.

Oh, to have my greek new testament and concordances back from the days in seminary.

The term “prodigal” is a translation of the word “ασωτως” (Asotos), which is used here: “After a few days, the younger son gathered together all he had and left on a journey to a distant country, and there he squandered 44 his wealth 45 with a wild lifestyle.” (ζων ασωτως) (zon asotos)

@Lysana: They’ll run with anything they can along those lines.
One of our Senators from Oklahoma actually ran on the idea that he was going to combat the rampant lesbianism in Oklahoma high schools.
It seems that this M.D. (Tom Coburn) heard that high school girls hang out in the girls restrooms together at school and social events and put two and two together and got seven, which is to say that the girls were all lesbians recruiting each other and their junior high sisters into the lesbian lifestyle.

Having said that, there is actually something to Chet’s point. The story isn’t about the “prodigal” son, or the jealous son. It’s about the love of the father for both the sons. And that’s why, in some bibles, it’s called the parable of the compassionate father.

@arguingwithsignposts: That’s great, but I noticed you didn’t say anything at all about the Oklahoma Lesbian High Schoolers!

Philistine!

Off topic–why I love AAFES–the exchange– is because I can price challenge anything!
I ordered a pair of ASICS sneakers, an aluminum hard drive enclosure, and a WORX snow blower from their site, and today I showed that I could get all three items cheaper from REI, Buy.com, and nakedworld.us and they credited me back the difference of $73.62!
yes, they actually accepted a price from http://www.nakedworld.us.

Her now-40 year old crime I can forgive her for. Her recent bigoted asshole act I cannot.

The upside in all this is that many of her harshest judges are likely to be among those voters she’s targeting to be her core supporters, whom she most identifies with. The schadenfreude in that is delicious.

A metaphor for God’s love for mankind, I believe, and the way he was supposed to unconditionally love humanity no matter how many mistakes it made.

But the story works on multiple levels. There’s the God metaphor. There’s also the love of a father for his son, like you said. There’s the memo to people that no matter how badly you fuck up your life, your parents will always be there for you – and by extension, that God will always be there to catch you no matter how often you turn away from him. And of course the warning against turning into a raging, self-righteous asshole.

@Chet: You run in a limited crowd. Mine has managed a fair proportion of self-confessed prodigal behavior in our day and few of us venture near any fold, let alone return to it (having never been there in the first place). But we are the sort that get our definitions from Websters and our science from peer-reviewed papers. But exactly true on Frankenstein and the creature and if that isn’t a messed up relationship between essentially a father and his created not-begotten son I don’t know what is.

ETA: and I count it one of the joys of the last year that I got to see Benedict Cumberbatch as both Doctor and Creature in the NT live transmission. Jonny Lee Miller was ok, but BC. Sorry. Just better.

Obviously, the girl/victim never came forward to press charges, so while legal consent did not occur, it is possible the girl consented verbally to Wall. That wouldn’t make Wall’s crime acceptable, but her remorse does potentially rectify it. The student was at worst, a 12-year-old, and at best, a 14-year-old girl at the time Wall committed the statuatory [sic] rape, which can be traumatizing – or of little to no consequence, depending on the individual situation.

@0whole1: Yep. We’re talking junior high school. And if it were a male teacher carrying on with a junior high school student, whether a girl or a boy, I doubt there would be calls for pictures. She was dismissed from her job, so I am guessing that either the girl came forward or was caught and probably doesn’t need to be dragged out of the background as a witness at this time.

People are wrong about which son is the prodigal one. But why would blowing all your money and winding up as a failure make you a prodigy? If you think about it even for like ten seconds you’ll see I’m right.

No. Prodigal has nothing to do with prodigy. The origins aren’t the same.
ME prodigium for prodigy, Latin prodigus, from prodigere to drive away or squander for prodigal. Where’s Davis X. Machina when you need him?

@0whole1: Blue Virginia even undersells the other Republican in that race. Here’s the money quote:

Republican Matt Farriss, not only has a police record of misdemeanor convictions for drunk driving, illegal hunting, and gun charges, but in 2002 he also had a protective order sworn out against him by a Lynchburg woman who told police Farriss had broken “through her back door to gain entry into her house when she told him to leave. History of violence.” As if that isn’t enough against Farriss, he also has been involved in several civil law suits stemming from his business activities and alleged failure to pay bills.

Later on, Blue Virginia writes:

Will voters pick Connie Brennan, or will they opt for the habitual scofflaw or the supposedly-reformed sexual predator who could still face a felony conviction if her victim comes forward to press charges?

I was going from the article ABL linked to that placed Wall at Prince George High School in Peterburg, VA.
Blue Virginia does not provide a link to the claim that the minor in question was in fact a junior high student, but merely asserts such. The article at postchronicle.com claims that she taught junior high school gym at the time, but provides no sourcing nor does it provide a name of a school. I’m unfamiliar with the Post Chronicle or their reputation.

The AP coverage in the Richmond Times-Dispatch doesn’t name the school or say whether it’s a junior high or high school. I would rather wait until further info becomes available before jumping to the most outrage-inducing interpretation of this account.

My take before I can be misinterpreted:

Teacher/student relationship bad on the basis of the power differential alone.

Relationship between 21 year old adult and under-16 year old is bad.

Relationship between 21 year old adult and 16-17 year old falls into a moral gray area depending on circumstances and the laws in that particular jurisdiction.

Blue Virginia cites her stint as a PE teacher at a junior high school (middle school). I was 12-14 while in junior high, and I don’t remember my PE teacher(s) from junior high. Which makes this all the more sickening.

All right, now I’ve finally got sourcing on the junior high claim… thank you Virginian Pilot (ye olde home towne paper). It comes from her deposition in the defamation case brought by Paul Jost. In her deposition, she says she was a PE teacher for Prince George Junior High School (or such she believed or remembered the name to be). The Daily Fail…er, Mail got the school identification wrong.

Right, Ms. Wall. Now you’ve got no leeway. You’re definitely out of the grey zone and into the indefensible area. Junior high, really… and you blame it on teh ghey and the liberals and the pot? Come now.

, Ms Wall could still be charged with a crime if the woman decides to come forward.

Lovely case of scrupulous journalism – there are plenty of legal resources to consult. First, aside from murder, there is a statute of limitations for any felony (some limited exceptions for rape of a minor – and these are pretty recent). And the rule that applies is based on the time when the offense took place.

@Chet: You’re right about the moral of the story, but wrong about definition of “prodigal.” The word root is the same as from “prodigious”. It means “spendthrift” – spending a prodigious amount, wasting money.

“Prodigy” comes from the same root, but it means a prodigious (overlarge) intellect. The “prod-” root just means something like “big”, “ahead of its time”, “too much for its own good” – that kind of sense. The prodigal son is the big spender.

But you’re right that the story is about how the other son acts like a dick.

@Chet<blockquoteI never said it wasn’t a popular or very old mistake, but it’s a mistake, same as referring to bolts-in-the-neck animated dead guys as “Frankensteins.”

Or how everyone thinks “The Thin Man” refers to Nick Charles, when in fact the titular thin man in the original book by Dashiell Hammett and the original movie was the victim, not the detective. So if some film snob insists that William Powell played the Thin Man, say no, it was Edward Ellis.

Thanks, guys, especially Chet. The confusion about the Prodigal Son got me to look it up in Teh Mighty Google. It’s one of three parables Jesus tells the Pharisees about God not caring for self-righteous assholes (and if they didn’t get it after three stories, they never would).

Anyhow, the part about the Prodigal Son hitting rock bottom as a swineherd but returning to a joyous reception sounded familiar. I collect old engravings and prints I find at the local flea markets, and have one called The Swineherd At Sunrise by Herman and Cornelis Saftleven. Sure enough, it all matches and it turns out that the subject of Prodigal Son as swineherd had been done by Albrecht Dürer and others.

@Calouste: The hell of it is that Sen Coburn is the least destructive of our two Senators. The other one, James Inhofe, exists for one purpose, and that is to prevent any kind of climate or environment legislation from ever passing the US Senate.
If he were any more blatantly corrupt, he’d actually walk around with the Oil and Gas industry’s hand permanently up his ass.

A friend’s sister taught there for a while. IRRC, Farmville was one of many places which shut down their public schools for a decade or more, rather than integrate.

Prince Edward County’s public schools, of which Farmville is a part, were closed for five years in a show of massive resistance, not “a decade or more”. The behavior of the segregationists was still reprehensible, though.

She is not a republican, but is running as an independent candidate. It was a former republican candidate who outed her (so to speak)saying she was unfit to run for public office. And shockingly I agree with the republican on this one.

@Paul in KY: Well, it’s a bit of a pain, and that’s what I’d hear when I’d tell them about it, but for about 20 minutes of work, I saved $73.62. As I used to explain to my troopies (I’m retired now), that works out to better than $210/hour. Definitely worth the effort!

Not necessarily, but it is possible. 40 years ago college wasn’t nearly so expensive and teacher training programs didn’t take an extra year or more to get through. My mother was a full teacher by 21 in the 60’s.

Although that is interesting detail to iron out, along with whether it was a Senior or Junior High School. In any event her story still makes her sound like an asshole even if being a student teacher MIGHT make her SLIGHTLY less culpable.

BUT, if she was 21, wouldn’t she be a student-teacher, at most? I’m willing to bet that this actually happened when she was a lot older. Mid-to-late 20’s, when she was a real teacher.

In the interview with AP, she said the event happened 40 years ago. While I took that literally, she may have been rounding up as people tend to do in conversation. The quote from her deposition is even more vague, placing it merely in the “early seventies”, so it could’ve happened anywhere between 1970-74. I’m beginning to think that she may have been a little older than a strict reading of “forty years ago” might indicate, say more like 22 to 25-ish.

At this point, whether she was 21 or 25 at the time doesn’t really matter, as her own deposition places her as a junior high school teacher. That alone removes any potential “grey area” with regards to the age and power differentials.

As for the Daily Mail’s account of her being a high school teacher at the time, that was a reporting error by a British paper that was apparently not cognizant of the subtleties of the American educational system.

She’s using teh ghey to distract from the child molestation. Since parents who have their kids in Catholic schools usually take Virtus training, a fair pile of her constituents know that approximately 25% of child molesters are women. (I might not remember the percentage exactly, but it’s in that range.) For some reason, the assumption is that these women are cougars, but I think if she spins it right, most people will not connect the dots to *lesbian* sex with a minor.